Becoming the president of the United States is no easy feat. Some people devote years to this goal and never succeed, like Lyndon LaRouche, who ran for president eight times and never succeeded. Others appear once and inexplicably win. And while being president is impressive in itself, a number of presidents have also had other remarkable claims to fame that they could have made, which have followed them throughout history.
10. Lincoln is the only president who has a patent
Near 25% participants Polls identify Benjamin Franklin as a former president, despite never having been one. But Franklin was a remarkable inventor. When you remove him from the list of presidents, the number of true inventors who served as presidents drops significantly. In fact, only one president ever had a patent issued in their name, and that was Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln was elected in 1861, but a few years earlier, in 1849, he received a patent for a device that could be used to tow ships in shallow water. Patent No. 6469 was Lincoln's only patent and was born out of his work as a ferryman, who had to deal with the hassle of ferrying a vessel across sandbanks. He twice found himself stranded when his boats ran aground.
The invention was essentially an airbag for a boat. Inflatable devices could be lowered onto the sides of the boat, inflated, and used to propel the boat over shallows and back into the water. Apparently, it was never built , and there is some doubt whether it will work at all.
9. Teddy Roosevelt is the only president to have a tattoo (sort of)
They say that 30% Americans have tattoos as of 2019. That means, statistically, about 13 presidents should have had tattoos. Of course, no one had tattoos during Washington's time, but surely at least one president had one, right? Well, yes. Just one. At least since the fashion.
While there are rumors that both Roosevelts were tattooed, along with Polk, Eisenhower, and even Andrew Jackson, there is only one confirmed presidential tattoo, and it belonged to the toughest man ever to hold the office: Teddy Roosevelt. .
You can Google it right now and find countless articles claiming Roosevelt had his family crest tattooed on his chest. It turns out that's not true. It started as a joke in an old humor magazine. 1912 . They included doctored photographs of Roosevelt with tattoos to sell the joke.
Roosevelt actually had a tattoo on his chest, but it was unintentional. Ever the man, the president apparently encountered gunpowder when he was 13 and got a tattoo of it on his chest. That's what you call it when you fire a gun and the hot powder hits your flesh, burning its way into you, leaving a permanent reminder.
8. Martin Van Buren was the only president who spoke English as a second language.
Most American presidents speak only English. However, less, over the years there were several bilingual presidents . Several early presidents, such as John Adams and James Monroe, spoke French fluently. Both Roosevelts could speak German to some extent, as could Bill Clinton. Some even spoke Latin. But Martin Van Buren wasn't just the only one who spoke Dutch; he was the only one for whom English was second language .
Van Buren's family was Dutch, and although he was born in Kinderhook, New York , He grew up speaking his family's native language and later learned English. His father owned a tavern, which at the time was the main center of political activity in any community. People would gather, drink, and talk politics, so he would have been exposed from an early age.
7. Woodrow Wilson was the only president with a doctorate.
When you delve into the question of "who was the smartest president," you'll find many answers and likely many insults. Intelligence, of course, isn't as easy to measure as some might think. But we can at least compare the education and experience of presidents to see how they stack up. And while many had varied careers and educations, pursuing law and other such pursuits, only one president ever earned a doctorate.
Woodrow Wilson, who served from 1913 to 1921, received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. His area of expertise was political science , which seems appropriate.
A number of presidents had advanced degrees, but they did not stay with them. Washington received surveyor's license attended college but never earned a bachelor's degree. Lincoln, Van Buren, Jackson, Fillmore, Taylor, and Cleveland never attended college. Truman, McKinley, Monroe, and Harrison attended college but never earned degrees.
6. James Buchanan was the only bachelor president.
These days, we take it for granted that the president has a first lady. When a woman is elected, if she is married, her husband will likely be called the First Gentleman. James Buchanan is the only president to have slightly broken this tradition, as he was the only president ever elected. bachelor .
He was engaged for many years before taking office, but broke it off shortly before his wedding. During his tenure, he had a "sort of" first lady in the person of his niece. Harriet Lane . She is said to have performed many of the same functions as other first ladies and became quite popular as a result.
5. President Tyler is the only president who was not buried under the American flag.
When a president dies, the funeral is usually a significant event. A state funeral is held, and people from all over the country will come to pay their respects. When died in 2018 George Bush Sr. , attended by world leaders, and a day of mourning was observed. President Bush's casket, draped in the American flag, was on public display. It was similar to all previous presidential funerals, with one notable exception.
When John Tyler died, he was the only president in history to be buried under a flag that didn't belong to the country he represented. Instead, he was buried under the Confederate flag. There's a reason Tyler is commonly considered one of worst presidents in history.
Tyler is buried atHollywood Cemetery, Which, despite its name, is located in Richmond, Virginia. His funeral was the only one not officially recognized in Washington. Confederate President Jefferson Davis turned the funeral into a spectacle and draped a Confederate flag over the president's coffin.
4. Rutherford B. Hayes is the only president who is respected in Paraguay.
You can't shake a stick without hitting something named after Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and so on. Schools, bridges, parks, roads, you name it. There's no end to what's named after some of the most iconic presidents across the country. But what about outside the US?
One president stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to recognition on foreign soil. Rutherford B. Hayes is a legend in his own right. Paraguay . Unlike America, where almost nothing is named after Hayes, Paraguay offers a river, a province, a city, and even a football team named after the one-term president.
The reason for Paraguay's love affair with Hayes dates back to 1877. After Paraguay went to war with Brazil and Argentina, the country lost a huge amount of land to other countries. When Argentina attempted to lay claim to a piece of wilderness, the two countries agreed to forego actual war in favor of neutral third-party arbitration. This was before the existence of the United Nations, so the countries asked the United States to determine who got the land. President Hayes decided in favor of Paraguay , making him a local hero for years to come.
3. James Madison was a tiny man.
You can think of the president as a larger-than-life figure. It helps that some presidents were indeed incredibly tall. Abe Lincoln was 6 feet 4 inches. Lyndon Johnson and Donald Trump were both around 6 feet 3 inches. But if Lincoln is the tallest (and he was), then one of these 46 men must be the shortest. The shortest president in history was James Madison, and it takes a moment to realize just how frail he was. He was short in stature and supposedly incredibly light.
Official records show that Madison's height was 5 feet 4 inches . His weight seemed to fluctuate somewhere around 100 pounds . This is usually considered underweight for a man of his height. It was also said that he spoke so quietly that it was difficult to hear him when he gave speeches.
2. Ronald Reagan was the only president to wear a Nazi uniform (in a film)
It's hard to find a more deservedly hated group in modern history than the Nazis. They were horrific in almost every conceivable way. After the war ended, and indeed even before, they became a fixture in pop culture. They're almost perfect villains, and any hero can thwart them without risking offence, using them as foils in the story because they're so horrific that no one wants to see them destroyed. That's why Captain America has been slaughtering Nazis since the early 1940s, and there have been literally hundreds of films featuring other heroes doing the same.
Playing a Nazi in a film must be at least a little challenging for actors who don't want people to associate them with hatred, but if we all understand it's fiction, what's wrong with that, right? And perhaps that's why the only president in American history to ever wear a Nazi uniform, at least that we know of, was one who appeared in a movie. Ronald Reagan once dressed up as a Nazi in a movie «Desperate Journey» in 1942.
1. Grover Cleveland is the only president to serve as an executioner.
No one's first job is ever being president. You have to do a lot to get to that point. In fact, you can't even be president unless you're 35 years old. This means every president likely held several jobs before they took their seat. Some were senators or congressmen, some were lawyers or businessmen. And Grover Cleveland? He was executioner .
Before taking office, Cleveland was a lawyer in New York. He served as sheriff of Erie County, a job that also included double duty as county executioner. The preferred method of execution at the time, which was in the mid-1800s, was hanging.
During his tenure as sheriff/executioner, Cleveland was responsible for execution of two men . Both were murderers, and both were publicly hanged by Cleveland.
Cleveland was not the only president , who committed suicide—many of them had been soldiers before taking office and had fought in battles that resulted in casualties. Some, like Andrew Jackson, had fought duels. Cleveland was the only one to do so, presumably with a black bag over his head, in an official capacity.